Various rope constructions have been developed over the years in response to market needs for performance improvements. Most notably braided ropes, have substantially replaced the older, more traditional, stranded rope as the preferred construction for many different uses. The innovation in rope products since the introduction of the braided rope has related to the particular materials of the rope.
Increasingly, rope products are designed to meet increasingly more specific performance requirements. These requirements are becoming increasingly more market specific. With respect to one market, arborists, there continue to be a specific and unmet need, which the present invention seeks to meet. That need is the combination of a firm and uniformly shaped rope, and one which is yet easily spliceable. No climbing ropes have, to date, exhibited this mutually exclusive combination of user benefits, namely firm and spliceable.
Arborists' climbing ropes must work precisely in cooperation with commonly used mechanical devices including friction hitches. These hitches and devices require rope firmness and dimensional uniformity to ensure quality-performance. Certain mechanical clearances in channeling a rope through braking devices, for example, may render those devices difficult to operate or even non-functional, if bulges in the rope are present.
In recent years some forms of double braided ropes have been used as climbing ropes due to the ease of splicing these ropes. This represents a compromise in performance because bulges in the rope are commonly exhibited when the rope is used in a braking device or friction hitch. The user is presented with a conflicting choice of an inferior climbing rope which compromises firmness to enable splicing. Firm, uniform arborists' climbing ropes, by virtue of their design, are too tight to enable splicing.